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MIRACLES of Algae

June 17, 2017

EuroNews met with the scientists working on a European research project fittingly named “MIRACLES” — Multi-product Integrated bioRefinery of Algae: from Carbon dioxide and Light Energy to high-value Specialties. An industry-driven R&D and innovation project, MIRACLES is aimed at developing integrated, multiple-product biorefinery technologies for the production of specialties from microalgae for application in food, aquaculture and non-food products.

The Netherlands’ Wageningen University and Research Centre, which specializes in healthy food and living environments, has been studying microalgae in transparent tubes filled with sea water for the past 20 years. “We grow them in sea water, and you have very few agricultural crops that can grow in sea water. We can put these systems on land which is not fertile, we can go to the desert, we can use land that’s not available for agriculture,” says Hans Reith, MIRACLES project coordinator.